A Lecture About Living

I don't usually get very personal here - but I think I want to...

This is a video I was sent. It's a professor's "Last Lecture".
He's dying of cancer - the same kind my dad had.
The video is from Oprah and I think it's very powerful.

http://video.stumbleupon.com/?s=ithct48cqw&i=ufcchmyxqsuj9vwsemax

I sent the video to my mother & got this response from her:

"WOW!! hard to type thru the tears.....but I will tell u that is how Daddy and I lived the last year of his life...we had fun and realize the truly important things in life...your Dad was as strong and positive as this guy...I want u to know...Daddy never complained...never asked why me...and did any thing the doctors asked him to do ...he was so sad to think he would leave you and Tyler so young. He loved you very very much and would be so proud of you today and all you have accomplished and the wonderful goals you have and are achieving ..never doubt that. You were his #1 son..I can see him looking at you for the first time in the hospital....love at first site! Mom"


I tear up everytime I read her response. It's so hard to think that it's been so long since he's been out of our lives. It's so hard to remember his laugh when the last memory I have of him is sitting in that old, brown La-Z-Boy chair. It was snowing and Aunt Sandi took Tyler and I to her house. Mom knew that he was going to be going that weekend. She didn't want us there. I remember that phone call at Aunt Sandi's. It was the Super Bowl. And she came downstairs, in no make-up, which was akward, and was crying. She said Mom was on the phone. And she told us. She told us that Dad died. And that she was holding his hand and so was Aunt Terry. I don't show too many emotions other than happy, but right now I can't stop crying. And I miss him. Would he be proud of me? I ask myself that almost everyday and I hate that I have to ask myself that. But would he be?

I had to grow up pretty quickly when he got sick and died. And I remember when Mom called me and Tyler into their bed room and told us that Daddy was very sick and that he didn't have much time to live. And at the funeral I remember one of Dad's sisters crying really loudly. And then Tyler, Mom, & I each took a rose off of the spray. Then we put them in the nitche. And a message.


It's just so hard for me to rationalize how I feel since it's been so long.